


vivid, restless, resolute

by fisherqueens



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bird!Fic, Honestly I just have a thing for birds in general, I have a thing for shape-shifters, M/M, More self-indulgent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 13:10:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10854675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fisherqueens/pseuds/fisherqueens
Summary: juno makes a twenty cred investment on a bird.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> honestly, i just have a thing for peter and the bird motif, don't even touch me. i'm on twitter at [filledwithbees](https://twitter.com/filledwithbees) and tumblr at [fisherqueens](https://fisherqueens.tumblr.com) and am always looking for more penumbra friends!
> 
> title is part of a quote from charlotte brontë:
> 
>  
> 
> _“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”_

****There's a bird going for twenty credits at a random street-side sale, sitting in a dinged up little cage among old-age bric-a-brac.  
  
Juno pays it no mind as he walks past it, aiming to grab a drink or two at the local dive bar, maybe mull over how he's going to hash out next month's rent, figure out what he's getting Rita for her birthday (not a raise, sorry). Important things. He thinks about how his left leg stings from his last case, how he's not sure about his knee and how it's making this weird little clicking noise when he flexes it back and forth for two long. He thinks about blood pressure and how the nurse at the ED had told him he needed to take up a better hobby. Like jogging instead of drinking.  
  
_"I'll pass. I don't need more cardio."_  
  
Reduces stress she says. Something about endorphins. Something about improving his mood.   
  
Whatever.  
  
He's three drinks in when he decides to call it a night. The bar tender is too chatty and while on any other day he'd appreciate (maybe) being hit on, he feels weirdly grimy about it and has to excuse himself to the bathroom with his tab paid off just to slip away without giving some overbearing jerk his number.  
  
He passes the bird going for twenty credits again, this time it's darker and the man is still shouting about how it sings if you give it enough time to warm up to you. How, even scrawny-looking as it might be, it still has some merit to it, a little bit of "pluck." At this, Juno nearly passes both man and bird up again. Bad jokes. No one needs them in this life or the next. But as he's about to walk completely away from the little table set up down the street, piled high with junk and antiques and fake gold and the little bird, it gives a sharp squawk at him.  
  
The door to its cage rattles a bit too sharply for Juno to _not_ turn around, like a "hey you!"  
  
The man standing just above the cage, hands on its handle, smiles. "Seems it's taken a liking to you. Wanna have a closer look?" he offers.  
  
Juno winces. "No thanks. Not really a... pet guy."  
  
The bird rattles the cage bars again, opening its wings as wide as it can (which actually isn't much) and reaching forward with little black talons to beat the bars convincingly. It does this for a few seconds before curling its claws around its little perch again and folding wings back close to its body. The display is... it's a little sad.  
  
"How long you had it?" Juno hazards, sticking his hands in his coat pockets. He's going to regret this, he knows it, but he still asks. The inquisitive part of his mind never seems to rest when the majority of his body wants to. The curse of his line of work, he supposes, having it bleed into his mundane life when all he wants is a drink and that warm, hazy, buzzed feeling before sleep. The man looks down at the cage and the bird, raising one unkempt eyebrow and lifting the cage itself up in both hands. It's small. Really small. Unpleasantly small for a bird of that size. The man and bird stare at one another, and there's something weird about that, how human the action is for the little, old world creature. It doesn't even have any extra eyes or wings or weird coloring it's just. Black and white. Little sharp eyes and a glossy beak.  
  
"'Bout a month? Too small to eat, wouldn't even be worth the effort it'd take to pluck the damn thing. No one seems t'want it either, but I keep trying. Used to be a hundred creds, you know. Then seventy. Then fifty..." The man sets the cage down again and Juno finds himself taking his steps back, eating them back up with his shoes as he strolls backwards like someone's hit reverse on the television screen. "Like I said. Twenty and it's yours. Pretty good little fella once you had him a bit. Nippy now and then, but I can't really afford to feed myself and bother gettin' him a new cage. Figured someone else might. Dunno."  
  
The bird looks at Juno for a beat, unnervingly maintaining eye contact for a few seconds before it dips down to run the beak over its feathers.  
  
_Kinda_ cute.  
  
The man shakes the cage a little in both hands and the bird lets out an undignified squeak (birds have dignity--definitely.) Juno frowns and steps forward. "Hey--"  
  
"Might be better off in the dump, really. At this rate, it's not even worth the effort to keep it decently fed. Damn thing can't even fly and to tell you the truth, it don't sing _none_ either. The only noise it makes is this awful little crowing sound. Find it hard to believe a bird like this didn't fly once... something must've happened. The feather's are pretty though. Might take those and do it a mercy. What's a bird without the sky, right?"  
  
Juno's gut twitches.  
  
The bird seems to listen, wings stilling, tail flicking. In the lamp light, its feathers are an odd green-blue color. Its throat works the way someone's might when nervous.  
  
It's listening.  
  
Juno wonders for a moment if the bird is smarter than the man knows. Most animals are smarter than anyone takes them for and even though Juno's only experience with animals are with Martian sewer rabbits and the cats of wealthy women, well.  
  
Antiquated Earth birds aren't that far off probably (though where the hell this one came from is a damn mystery, and in such good condition too--no compound eyes or stingers that he can see from here).  
  
He removes his hands from his pockets and reaches a finger out to touch the bar of the cage. The man doesn't seem to mind as he does so, examining the creature. The bird looks at Juno's finger a moment and then at Juno, letting out a strange little warbling chirp. It opens its beak and Juno stays still, letting it nip him quickly in succession five, six, seven times. It nips and when he lets his other fingers slide against the bars, it beats the cage again, letting little claws sink into Juno's skin.  
  
"Fighty," Juno says, barely wincing at the feel of needle-like claws scraping his battled fingers.  
  
"Always like that. Wants out."  
  
"Why not just... set it free?" Juno says. The bird must be too tired to keep up with the activity because the nipping and clawing stops in the next few seconds and it retires to its perch, hunched over and cramped. Too big to spread its wings, but hungry-looking in its little eyes like glass beads embedded in strange feathers--shifting hues in the moonlight, blue to purple to green to blue again to black.  
  
"Figured I could make a quick buck off it. Anything'll help a guy like me," the man says. "It owes me. For pickin' it up like I did. Damn thing couldn't fly when I took it in, still can't fly. But I figured someone'll want it." He looks Juno in the eye the same time the bird does. "So how about it?"  
  
Juno rubs his stinging fingers together a bit like he's looking to pull something out of thin air.  
  
He looks at the bird and the bird looks right back at him, cocking its head. Its feathers are puffed out just slightly now and Juno's stomach does a flip flop.  
  
"What'd you say it was again? Twenty creds?"  
  
"Twenty."  
  
Juno holds himself still a moment before letting out a pent in breath, reaching into his coat and fumbling amongst the contents.  
  
"Sounds fair..." Juno says. "It looks smart."  
  
The old man smiles and holds out his hand for the cash. "Saves me the mess of plucking it at the end of the night."  
  
Dodged a bullet there, Juno thinks as he looks at the bird, who seems to sag a bit on its perch. Relieved? Maybe. Juno would bet on it.  
  
"Yeah. Sure."  
  
Juno passes the credits over and glances down at the cage. The man pushes it forward rough enough that the bird teeters precariously on the perch, wings banging into the cage's bars to keep its balance. Juno reaches forward and picks up the cage carefully, more carefully than it'd been pushed forward. The bird twitters at him in sharp little tones, not too annoying, but not wholly pleasant either, and Juno waits for the transaction to finish before tucking the cage under his arm and making his way home twenty credits lighter. All the way home, the bird keeps chirping and "prrp"-ing and rattling the little bars. It presses its small, feathered cheeks to the metal and Juno lets his fingers graze it, feeling the sharp sting of its beak before the smooth warmth of its feathers. He rubs the dark feathers gently, the way you might scratch a cat beneath the chin.   
  
After a few minutes of this and carefully navigating the dark streets with the small cage in hand, the bird gives an uncomfortably loud shriek, wings trying to stretch.   
  
Juno stops at this and lifts the cage up to eye level, gets in close enough that the bird could probably peck his nose off if it really wanted to, which Juno hopes isn't the case.  
  
He and the bird lock eyes once more.  
  
"Say now, little guy. Uh... girl?" Doesn't matter. "Pipe down, alright? You get to keep all your little feathers, but you've gotta take it easy 'til we get back to my place, alright?"  
  
The bird trills and settles a little bit on its perch.   
  
"There you go."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the man is a bird who is a man.
> 
> aka juno might still be drunk.

****Between the space where his heart doesn't beat, there is a cage and there is a man, curved like the edge of a knife, hunched and gripping his window sill where not three seconds ago, there'd been a little black bird.  
  
_Ba-bump._  
  
Bird.  
  
_Ba-bump._  
  
Man.  
  
Eyes like a pool of clear water, lips full and inviting. Juno stares a moment at the little cage in the corner, at the feathers littering the bottom, the bars clawed and bitten and pecked at. He can see it in the moonlight, the man's fingers clutching the window sill are still raw-looking, wounded like he'd been picking at them himself. Juno takes a breath.  
  
_Ba-bump._  
  
Man.  
__  
Ba-bump.  
  
A man. Right here. On his window sill. Beautiful, pale, eyes narrow and features almost... too delicate.  
  
"Do throw that dreadful thing away would you?" the man whispers softly, taking his fingers up off the window to softly clutch at Juno's face, eyes tired-looking, but bright with fascination all the same. The man tips his head this way and that, left and right, gaze flitting over Juno's face from top to bottom. His thumbs press to his cheek bones, fingers curling over his ears, feeling where his hair is cropped especially short. For a moment, they are close enough, close enough to--  
  
The bird who is now a man kisses him. He kisses him slowly and deeply, warm as any sunbeam, lips softer than anything Juno has ever felt against his mouth. Silk. Satin. They taste expensive and Juno thinks his twenty credits to take the cage had been more than worth it. This is beyond a twenty cred kiss. The man is clutching him now, leaning from the window, stepping down on bare feet without a sound to press up against him invitingly. Too invitingly. Juno panics. He sputters mid-kiss and puts hands on the man's, pulls them away from his face and feels the flush of humiliation rising up his neck, painting him.  
  
"This is a dream," is all Juno manages after trying to form sounds with his mouth for a while. The man laughs, a high and pretty kind of giggle that makes Juno's inside yearn.  
  
"Hardly. That would mean going back in the cage," the man says airily and releases himself from Juno's grasp. He strides away, and Juno realizes with an even deeper flush that his bird-who-is-now-a-man is naked. Very, very naked. "And I'm _not_ going back. No refunds. No returns." The man is about to walk past the mirror propped up on Juno's dresser when he catches his reflection and hums a bit. A hand goes up to his hair and smooths it back just a little bit, scrutinizing. He doesn't even seem all that aware of just how naked he really is. "I do have to thank you. God only knows who they were planning on passing me off to. Maybe someone especially hungry."  
  
Juno swallows.  
  
Hungry.  
  
Yeah.  
  
The man turns on his heel again and his lips split open in his smile. All teeth. Sharp, pointed, but so sweet when he'd run his tongue over them.  
  
"Tell me, Juno, what possessed you to buy my cage?" he asks, eyes bright, intrigued. He doesn't move forward from his place standing there, in fact, he seems rather self-assured, hands resting gently on his narrow hips, chin tilted upwards. Juno tries to think of the words, but really, he can't see past the soft curve of the man's shoulder, his back, his hip. He squeezes his eyes shut a moment, only to hear the soft shiver of fabric. "Come now, no need to be shy or _ashamed_. I'm nothing you haven't already seen before."  
  
"I... beg to differ," Juno says, hoarser than he'd like. The man has wrapped himself in the flat sheet from his bed, tossing it over his shoulder as if it were the latest trend this side of the city, the thing wrapped loosely around his hips and pooling to the floor. It's not great and he really should wash his sheets more often, but.  
  
Well. The man makes it look like it should be on a runway, not in his bedroom.  
  
"Just didn't look right," Juno manages now, swallowing, but his throat is still tight. "Bird like you in a cage like that."  
  
"Indeed," the man says, looking down and seating himself on the edge of Juno's bed, legs crossed, thigh peeking out shamelessly from the fabric. He's beginning to card fingers through his hair thoroughly, picking out the smallest of black feathers. Juno watches from his place standing beside the bed. He can see them: bruised arms and elbows, shoulders, a blooming one on his knee and one that's yellowing on his shin, his ankle. "I have to thank you again. Truly. My previous arrangements had been far less than agreeable. Prison-like. Unbearable. The food was _awful. Please,_ tell me you've got something much better than seeds or I'll _die_. Right here. On the spot."  
  
The man looks up at him, smiling, unblinkingly.  
  
Juno glances to the door of his bedroom. "Takeout. Whiskey. Maybe a lime."  
  
"How depressing."  
  
Juno's mood sours like the single, dried up lime slice that is sitting hauntingly in the bottom of his refrigerator's crisper.  
  
"Tell me about it," Juno says, but the words come out too quickly. "Say, uh, you mind changing back? Just you know. For a bit. 'Til I can get you some clothes or... I don't know, 'til _you_ can get you some clothes?" Juno isn't sure if this is a good proposition or not, but judging by the man's face, it definitely doesn't seem all that pleasant. He'd changed out of the form faster than a blink. It's clear he'd been eager to get out of it...  
  
"How _cold_ , Juno."  
  
"You're _naked_ , of course you're cold. Feathers'd be a lot warmer." Which is when it hits him. "Hey, how the hell do you know my name anyways?" He turns around, begins to stalk towards the kitchen because his stomach is starting to clench and unfurl anxiously. He's trying to remember the last time he ate and maybe it was last night or early this morning. The hours all blend together and his appetite's not what it used to be. A string of bad days will do that to a body until it's running on less than fumes. The man is getting up slowly and following him now, as if he has anything better to do (really, he doesn't.)  
  
"You pulled out a little white card while looking for your money--it said your name on it." Juno nods slowly as he opens the fridge. Right. Business cards. Duh. There's a box of takeout on the middle shelf, just like he'd said, and when he pops the carton open with one hand, there's some decent-looking noodles in there, maybe, and some kind of cloned-protein he can't make out. It looks good enough to put in the microwave. When he glances over his shoulder, Peter is close enough that he nearly bumps noses with him.  
  
"Hey. You mind?"  
  
"That's rather depressing."  
  
"Great, then you don't need to put your nose in it," Juno mutters, tossing it onto the counter and leaning against the edge. He faces the man with his arms folded over his chest, trying not to prickle when he resumes the act of closing in on his space. "Make with the changing," he says. "Seriously. I'm not turning up the heat just because you didn't feel like getting a little feathery."  
  
"Changing is a lot of effort. I'm just feeling rather _peckish,_ Juno."  
  
Juno opens his mouth to respond and then closes it, watching some kind of emotion flicker over the man's face. Amusement. Horror at himself maybe for having said it. A combination of both most likely.  
  
Juno points to the front door.  
  
"You can leave if that's how it's gonna be. One's the limit. _My_ limit. There are only so many bird puns a lady's gonna take from a guy standing in a three-week-old bed sheet toga."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the bird has a name and juno finds that unconventional bedfellows aren't so bad. 
> 
> they're kind of cute, actually.

Juno finds out his name is Peter. He was once a bird who was once a man named Peter Nureyev from a floating city in the sky and this already baffles Juno enough that mid-bite of takeout, he puts up a hand and tells Peter to shut up before he can get further than that. "You can tell me about it in the morning," he says with a sigh. "I just asked for your name, not your autobiography." He wants to know how he became a bird, sure, it sounds like a great story, but his head is pounding a little bit louder than usual, aching hard between the eyes. He wants Peter to be quiet. Just for tonight. 

Because he does have a nice voice. 

It's just especially loud right now.

Peter doesn't look too ruffled by the comment, rooting around the takeout container with his own fork and picking out a few things here and there. He eats like a bird, that's for sure, not too much, selective, quick, but at least he knows how to use utensils still so it's a bonus. He takes his fill, which isn't much, and lets Juno have the rest, giving a languid stretch in the chair across from his at the little kitchen table. Juno notices over the lip of the container as he eats, how Peter's shoulders seem to soften, how his quick motions that had come across as strictly bird-like and frantic have eased into something much lazier, smoother as he seems to take a much slower look around the place.

Juno takes his time scraping the bottom, watching Peter casually worry his fingers as if he's just looking at his nails, seemingly varnished black. He can see Peter smoothing the pad of his thumb over his knuckles, over little cuts and bruises, eyes unperturbed, but pretty mouth drawn in a thin line.

For a moment, fork in his mouth, Juno wonders how long Peter had been in that cage. The bars had looked fairly dinged up, the shine a very forced sort of thing from the metal, like it'd been buffed more times than it could bear.

When the takeout container is cleaned out, Juno tosses it and the forks in the sink, causing Peter to sit up at attention now. He makes his way to the bedroom, Peter already following. He's already relinquishing the bed sheet back to the mattress and baring his very naked self to the moonlight before dropping to the other side of Juno's fairly narrow bed without so much as a "may I?" 

"Hey," Juno starts.

Peter looks determined. "I'm not going back to the cage, Juno, I won't repeat myself," he says, stretching out and giving Juno a good view of his...

everything. 

Juno's brain fizzles out briefly, a little snap-crackle-pop of the old Americana cereal commercials before he realizes he's staring at Peter baring himself to all the glorious space of this one, tiny bed with it's too-flat pillows and wrinkled sheets that haven't been laundered in weeks. He looks... happy. Weirdly enough. Juno's mouth twitches as he glances back to the cage. Peter had definitely been miserable in it, small head tucked beneath a wing, picking furiously at his feathers, the little nicks in the bars, the little scars on his fingers. He sees now the full extent of Peter's transformation from bird to man, the soft little shadow of feathers over his shoulders, downy-like perhaps to the touch if he were to reach out. His mouth goes dry, feeling awkward for just staring at Peter as he lays there, so completely safe-looking and vulnerable, belly up, smiling a little. 

The opposite of what he should be, or at least the opposite of how Juno would be if he'd been in the same boat. He... imagines anyways. 

"Must've gotten cramped in there," Juno finally thinks out loud as he tears his eyes away. Peter's snap open and turn up to look at him and Juno feels his chest tighten guiltily. 

"You've hardly the faintest clue," Peter says, rolling (thankfully) onto his belly, sprawling out with the equivalent of a purr. "I don't even remember how to fly... I was lucky to remember how to stand on my own two feet. You'd have had to carry me if I didn't."

Juno's eyes automatically trail over to the expanse of Peter's leg's. 

Long, long, long legs.

Scratch that. 

This is worse. 

Juno literally cannot fathom what it's like to breathe in this second, the supple curve of Peter Nureyev's shoulders, his back, the little dip that slopes and then rises with skin the color of moonlight and just as flawless for the most part and

fuck. 

He tosses a sheet over him briefly, beginning to undress as much as he dares. A sidelong glance at the cage tells him that the couch is going to be out of the question and frankly, Juno knows that it'll jack his body up too much for him to offer. So he just deals with it. Most people would kill for this kind of thing, wouldn't they? A beautiful someone or something laying next to them here in the dark without a second's hesitation. Without a single iota of resistance. Peter is lounging contentedly, eyes lulled shut, head pillowed, entire body lax. He's a creature unto himself, soft-looking but also the kind of person you could prick yourself on, like a rose.

He feels guilty for staring. 

For wanting.

But Peter seems to preen under the staring, shifting so that his legs can slip beneath the blanket and his back can turn away from Juno, laying on his side and letting out a soft huff of air. Juno narrows his eyes.

"We're still going to talk about this tomorrow. Just... not tonight. Okay?" Juno says, looking over at Peter's slowly rising and falling shoulder. He waits a minute and then frowns. "Peter?"

Peter says nothing, already half-way to fast asleep perhaps. 

"Yeah. Okay."

Just sleep. 

-

Juno wakes up to the feeling of something not quite right. 

Something just underneath his chin tickles. He reaches up a hand to scratch it slowly only to feel the little sting of something pinching him there at his thumb. He grunts and yanks his hand away as the tickling continues and then stops suddenly. 

"The fu--"

He glances down, starting to prop himself up on an elbow only to realize that there is a

bird

just curled up in the crook of his shoulder, resting its feathery head beneath his chin. 

Juno blinks slowly.

He squints. Not enough coffee. Not even fully awake yet. Juno's thought process trips over this, tries to parse through what happened the night prior. His hand drifts slowly, this time away from the bird's beak to the warmth of its body, weirdly cuddled up by his cheek. The feathers are soft under his rough palm and there's a little cooing sound near his ear as it snuggles up to him again and stills. 

Peter Nureyev. 

Juno stares at his ceiling and rests his hand where the bird's wings meet, where Peter's wings meet. He strokes them softly, feeling the ruffle of feathers, nerviness beginning to prickle in Peter's body that makes him go tense. 

"Easy," Juno mumbles. 

The rustling and twitching stops. He feels where his wings end, the edges of them, a little rough to the touch as if maybe crudely hewn. For a few moments he remains here, stroking the tips of Peter's wings, feels how the little feathers at his bird's nape prickle and fluff until he stops. Must be unpleasant to the touch, the uneven ends, hardly the way that birds' wings tend to be constructed in pictures. It's like they've been frayed, trimmed, shorn. Unevenly. Over and over again. 

Juno stops touching them. "Sorry," he says aloud. 

Peter snores the only way a bird knows how--softly and sweetly. 

He closes his eyes and drifts back off to sleep, the bird who is a man who is Peter Nureyev unmoving save for the little breaths it takes against his skin, quick breaths for a little heart.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and here be the nsfw chapter.
> 
> that's it. that's all i wrote /toddles off.

The man who sold him Peter Nureyev was wrong. Peter does, in fact, sing.

You just have to touch him in just the right way. 

-

It's not under the chin. 

And it's not on his belly where his feathers turn white. 

It's not underneath his left wing or his right. 

And it definitely isn't between the eyes or on the crown of his little feathery head.

-

Apparently the right way is to have him sprawled out on the bed sheets with his hips lifted and thighs spread, one hand on his back, the other pressed against that soft little spot just beneath his entrance. He's shivering under him, every little part of him prickling and on edge as Juno slides his fingers up and traces the rim of him with his thumb slowly, slick and shiny with lubricant. He's been at this a good twenty minutes already and like hell if he wants to stop. He could do this all day, moving his fingers teasingly against the exposed flesh and listening to the sounds of Peter crooning with need at him.

His lips are a little dark with kissing and biting--they'd been at it for an hour before all of this, just pressing their lips together to the point of bruising, pulling and sucking softly, holding, caressing, cheeks flushing and bodies glowing, it almost seemed. 

He looks sinfully good.

Peter sings when Juno presses just the tip of his thumb into him--a high little note of a giggling pitch that runs itself down Juno's spine like the blunt side of a knife. Juno pauses, thumb poised against him, feeling Peter tremble and shift against his finger, pressing back against it willingly so that he misses pushing himself all the way in and skims over the twitching muscle that flutters against the pad of his thumb. "Oh, god..." Juno whispers, stroking down. He's going to fuck a bird. 

Sort of. 

A man, really. He needs to stop this kind of train of thought that reminds him that Peter can shift into something small and feathery. 

He strokes again, down, spreading the lube over the surface of his entrance, this time pressing right in with his thumb and hearing Peter let out another sharp noise, the musicality of it crescendoing a bit higher now. Juno feels his skin tighten over his shoulders, watches as the little feathers against Peter's nape lift a little bit in pleasure. He's grabbing onto the sheets with his slender fingers, nails clutching fast in the bed and twisting the fabric around as he lifts his hips a bit more. 

"Juno--" 

Juno hushes him. "If you're gonna' make a noise," he whispers. "Do that one again."

For a few seconds, he gives Peter the pleasure of fucking him on his thumb slowly, keeping him spread open wide as he presses in and pulls out, letting him writhe a bit against the sensation. But Peter does as he's bid, whimpering and wiggling his hips in Juno's lap and letting out another trill, this time louder and even sweeter than before. There's something warm and enticing about this one, about how Peter looks over his shoulder as he makes it. His eyes, clear and light and reflective find Juno's as he slides his thumb in again, strokes the soft, wetness inside of him. He opens him up in earnest on his fingers, one and then two, three (and Peter digs his toes into the mattress, hips snapping up and trembling and doing everything possible to take Juno in deeper, deeper, deeper.)

Four are barely there and Juno figures that's enough. 

He's hard and leaking against Peter's thigh, wet and thick and fumbling and when he starts to sink into Peter it's all over. 

Seriously. 

All of it. 

Peter is a white-hot body, fluttering and alive, frantically moving like the tongues licking out of a star before it goes super nova. Juno rides the sweet curve of him with his body like a breaking wave, slipping flush over him like foam over sand. He breathes in, Peter breathes out, sings out, and it only encourages Juno to bury himself deeper, bearing himself down under he has Peter pressed flush against the mattress as he fucks faster and deeper into him, rhythmically. 

"Please," Peter begs, but it's muffled as Juno slides fingers between his lips messily and hushes him. 

"I told you--you sing or you shut up," he whispers, but kisses just beneath his ear with a fondness that's only for him. "I'll give you whatever you want, but you gotta sing, sweetheart." 

He seems to melt at this, body pouring to fit the shape of Juno's over him, ankles hooking around his to keep him trapped fast to his body like thorns catching. Juno slides fingers out of Peter's mouth slowly, listens to him and the little, musical sounds trailing out of his throat, trilling and leaping and dipping until Juno's had him so hard his lips part and his throat bobs but no music exits. He leans in and kisses the side of his neck where his pulse beats practically through his skin. He marks the pale column of his throat with little red welts, teeth and tongue and pressure because he loves how Peter tightens so sweetly around him, on the edge of it all.

"There you go," he soothes as he comes, as Peter comes too, hard and messy against the mattress, trembling thighs and flushed so beautifully. "Just like that..."


End file.
